Beautiful Chaos!

Lesson 13 - Family Rules and Legacies Every family has rules and those rules include those about money. In his book, Till Debt Do Us Part , Bernard Poduska shares his thoughts about monetary family rules. He explains that “family rules are maintained and transmitted across generations on three levels: explicit, implicit, and intuitive” (Poduska, B. (2000). Till Debt do us Part, (Chapter 2). Salt Lake City, Utah: Shadow Mountain). We have seen that transmission over generations in our family. Thankfully, my husband and I both had good examples to transmit to our children. Family Unity My son-in-law is Venezuelan by birth. He and my daughter met while both were serving their missions. After their missions, they had an unplanned meeting and were engaged a few months later. During that time, we learned that my son-in-law was a DACA recipient whose dream was to become a United States citizen. Honestly, I didn’t really know anything about the process he would be required to go t...

Lesson 12 - Who is the Boss? Photo by <a href="/photographer/spekulator-53353">B S K</a> from <a href="https://freeimages.com/">FreeImages</a> This week for my Marriage class we read an article called “Who is the Boss? Power Relationships in Families” by Richard Miller, PhD, of Brigham Young University. His presentation discussed the issues of power, control, and hierarchy in families. He brought up several valuable points and I want to share my thoughts on a couple of them. 1.        “The parent-child hierarchy dissolves when children become adults.” I have five grown children, three are married and two are single. Of those five, the two single daughters and one married son have been living with us for the past three months. Thankfully, they didn’t all move home at once so my husband and I have been able to make adjustments along the way. We have seen the challenges others have faced when their children came home ...

Lesson 11 - Fidelity in Marriage “Infidelity is one of the great sins of our generation.” President Spencer W. Kimball In our class reading this week, I have discovered the many facets of the word fidelity. Having previously only considered a limited definition, this was eye-opening for me. Kenneth Matheson, professor of Social Work at Brigham Young University, defines fidelity as “complete commitment, trust, and respect between husband and wife.” He further states, “Inappropriate interactions with another person can erode fidelity.” ( Fidelity in Marriage: It’s More Than You Think , Kenneth W. Matheson) College Memories While I was reading his article, my mind wandered back to my first year of college. I had a great friend in college named Kip who was in the same home evening group as I was. We enjoyed our group activities, and that was really all there was to it. We never dated or entertained romantic thoughts. When the college year came to an end, we exchanged addresses ...